For over 100 years—save for the war years—Mercedes-Benz maintained a consistent product strategy of offering affordable and practical transportation for the masses; these vehicles were promoted with a limited number of “halo” automobiles for the affluent and influential, as well as the marque’s heavily publicized achievements in motorsport.

As soon as the company could get back on its feet after World War II, it reverted to this strategy.

At the recently revived auto shows in Frankfurt and Paris in 1951, the company displayed the updated but economical 170 S passenger sedan, the 300 limousine, and the 300 SL race cars, as well as three versions of its 300 S—the Roadster, Cabriolet, and Coupe—that used a shortened version of the limousine chassis and a detuned version of the 300 SL engine.

The bodies were designed by Hermann Ahrens, whose own design credentials extended back to the 540 Ks built between the wars.

With their stately, tall Mercedes-Benz grilles mounted with the three-p...